What I Have Learned So Far

Entering my few final weeks at ASU, it has dawned on me that my project is getting closer and closer to ending. It has also dawned on me how much I've learned in the past 5 or so weeks during this internship. I'm now comfortable in a biomedical engineering lab setting; and although it isn't something that I specifically learned under the guidance of my on-site mentor, I still feel that it is a great accomplishment to achieve. It has pushed me to re-evaluate what I want in a university. And that push led me to research my top list of schools under the criteria of research funding and innovation.

In addition to this re-evaluation , I've learned that the things I feared most in engineering is what intrigued me pick it as my major, and my project. It is all about physics and mechanical work. Screen printing, printed circuit board fabrication, materials design, and circuit board design all fit under what I have learned at my internship. My project is also about learning how one does research. And I've concluded a lot of it has to do with waiting and practicing patience. In my last blog, I said I was waiting to learn printed circuit board fabrication because we needed new materials. Unfortunately, those materials didn't come in this week. So that means I haven't fully learned what the fabrication process entails. But I'm hopeful that this week will be the week to start learning.  This doesn't mean I did nothing during this week though. I actually split most of my time working on my powerpoint draft and reading about the fabrication process.

Below is a site that I came across that I really liked. On the side of the website, it divides the process into parts. If you click it, it will tell you the different part in that process. Some of those parts have different articles attached to them that discuss that specific sub-part of the fabrication step. Some part of this website are still being put up, but overall I thought it was a good start to the learning process.

http://www.pcbfab.com/


I'm know this week sounded really boring, and I'm sorry for that. But hopefully the next blog will be more exciting.  Until next time!



- Tina Smith

Waiting...

Hey guys! I now this is kind of a late post, but this week has been a bit hectic for me. I needed to work a lot at my part time job, in addition to going to ASU, and I had family birthdays to plan for. Although hectic, this week was mostly a transition week for me at my internship. Since ASU was on Spring Break last week, it seemed like this week people in the lab were getting back in the grove with things. So I spent a lot of time at the library this week, reading and designing new things for the circuit board.

Currently I'm working on a new revision of my design for the printed circuit board. I needed to make a little adjustments after talking with my on-site mentor. I need to make sure the spacing between the wirings are each 0.1 inch apart. In addition to that I needed to add pin connectors for each of the 6 wires in the 6X6 matrix. This is so we can measure things during testing. I'm still working on that revision for that, which I will hopefully complete on Monday. After I finish it, I will post a picture at the end of this blog for all of you to see.

Next blog I will be discussing the fabrication process of the printed circuit board that I will be learning sometime next week. I don't know any of the specifics of this process yet, so if you have any questions I hope to be able to answer them in the next blog.

It's Getting There

Hey guys! I know most of you  guys are on spring break, so this will be a short post about my week. Since I took off a few weeks ago, I still needed to go into ASU to get my 15 hours. And let me tell you, the ASU campus during spring break is dead. By observation, it seemed the only people on campus were the graduate students. As my sister put it, "There are no breaks in a life of a graduate student, including mine."

Not much happened this week in terms of my new project. The group I'm working with is slowly getting everything together so we can finish making this pressure sensor. The only thing I did this week was research the wires the lab and I are going to use for the circuit board. Why you ask? Because I need to know the spacing between each wire. Why do I need to know the spacing between each wire? Don't I just get 12 wires and create a circuit board? No. Before I would have though that, but in reality the wires come in a long strip. And each long strip has a bunch of wires. Since the lab is using a flexible wire type, I need to research online the spacing to edit my circuit board design.  In my last blog, I put a picture of my circuit board design. So if you haven't seen it, you should go check it out. On my design, there is a total of 12 lines in that photo, and therefore 12 wires for the circuit board. It was important for me to know what the spacing between each of those wires needed to be, to ensure there was enough space on the board, and that the wires wouldn't touch.  From researching online, the spacing between each of the lines needed to be 0.1 inch apart. Knowing that, the lab can put in an order online (or go buy it in a store if it is available) to speed up the production line.

So that's about all that happened this week. Not much hands on experience, but hopefully in the next coming weeks, the project will be complete and we can start different testing with the pressure sensor. Hope you guys are enjoying your spring break! Until next time!


- Tina Smith

A Change in Direction

This past week has been busy, busy, busy! Not only did the direction of my project change, but I was also brought together, once again, with an old nemesis of mine: Physics. Confused? Ok, let me take a step back and tell you what happened with my project. On Tuesday February 24th, I went into Dr. LaBelle's office to discuss what I was going to be doing in the lab that week. When I stepped into the office, he said he found a project for me to work on. In my head, I'm like, "Ok. Cool. I can do this. Wait, will I know anything about the topic?" Notebook in hand, I sat down and got to taking notes. And here I met my nemesis, Physics. Throughout the entire conversation, the only words I got across my mind from my 3 pages of notes were pressure sensor and circuit board design.  So after that meeting, I went straight to my sister-- who previously worked on this project-- to ask her to explain the entirety of the project.

MY NEW PROJECT

My new project is to build a pressure sensor with a team of other individuals in the lab. Now what is a pressure sensor? Exactly what is sound like, it is an instrument that detects changes in pressure when someone applies it. It can calculate pressure and then one can look at the contour of pressure over a certain area. Of course, I'm not making the entire thing. So what is my part in this project? Well, earlier I said I understood 2 outcomes from the meeting I had with Dr. LaBelle: a pressure sensor and a circuit board design. And the later is my designated part in the project. I am to make a circuit board design for the pressure sensor.

What does a pressure sensor look like? Now I could describe it to you, but then things get far too confusing and wordy. Instead I will show you. Below are pictures of a previously made pressure sensor. Now the pressure sensor I am working on will have a different design of the cooper wiring you see below. The wires will be much much smaller and more of them.

This is a 6x6 model of the pressure sensor. As you can see there are a lot of wiring sticking out everywhere, which is a challenge the lab is trying to fix.   

This is the bottom of the pressure sensor.

As you can see the lab had to attach wires to each cube of the 6x6 for the circuit to be complete.
(This is the underside of the picture above)
 

This is the middle layer of the pressure sensor. It is nonconductive foam. Within in each cube there is a circle cut out so the lab could put conductive foam in, this is to ensure top and the bottom circuit board would connect.  

This week I spent a lot of time with Dr. LaBelle reviewing and redesigning the wires. Below is the final copy of what the circuit board design will look like. It may not look like it took a long time to make, but I assure you it took a solid 2 hours of my time to get the correct number of lines, spacing, and configuring done. But that's what happens when you aren't tech savvy I guess.   

I'll show you guys the final product once the lab and I finish it! If you guys have any questions, ask in the comment section below. Until next time guys!

- Tina

PS. I wanted to send a special thanks to my sister who helped me out a lot this week. Especially when I would ask her such silly and out of the blue questions when she had to do work. THANKS VICKI! <3